Implement a sales playbook for your organization on how to tackle any prospect interaction to drive positive results across your team.

Selling without a guide is like driving to an unknown destination without a map. If you want to accelerate your progress toward higher conversion rates, you need a framework that guides your sales techniques clearly and helps you track your results. This is the value of a sales playbook for any business in any industry.

What is a sales playbook?

To put it simply, it’s a comprehensive document full of useful information on turning leads into sales and detailed strategies for optimizing team performance. Your goal when compiling a playbook for your organization is to identify effective sales techniques and train your staff to use them to help ensure positive results.

According to a LinkedIn study, sales professionals have a turnover rate of 10.8 percent, so, depending on the size of your staff, you could be onboarding new team members often. An effective sales playbook not only acts as a reference guide as you train these new hires but also makes it easy for your current staff to polish their skills. Build a comprehensive one that’s packed with productive elements, and your team will have the tools they need to close more sales.

Lay out the steps to making a sale

The central component of your sales playbook should be a step-by-step guide that helps your team direct leads through the sales funnel—from a company gaining awareness of your brand to a faithful customer who refers others to your business. The best way to make this happen is to write a script that covers the following essential steps.

1. Introduction: Your team should begin every sale by greeting a new lead or returning customer and building rapport with them to create a positive impression of your brand. This is a great place in the process to drop in proven lines or quips courtesy of your more outgoing team members—the ones who can get a smile or a laugh out of potential buyers.
2. Discovery: Once your team connects with a prospect, they need to identify the potential client’s needs. What can your products or services do for them? Note in the script the importance of listening well at this stage, and include a list of key phrases your team can hook onto, such as “I’m a little short on cash” or “My current agent just isn’t working out anymore.”
3. Presentation: This is your team’s elevator pitch—its chance to introduce what you sell. Each member should offer specific details and be prepared to answer questions about pricing, specs, etc. This should be the most precisely worded and adhered-to part of the sales script.
4. Value proposition: At this stage, your salespeople should break down the main advantages of what you have to offer, what makes it better than competitors’ offerings, and how it addresses the prospect’s core needs. This section of your script is essential for helping new hires and seasoned sales pros alike pitch what you sell accurately—and with attractive language.
5. Overcome objections: Few sales go perfectly, and your team will likely face frequent resistance. This portion of the playbook prepares them for any initial rejection, then gives them suggested phrases they can use to regain a prospect’s interest and redirect them toward closing.
6. Close: Here is where your sales team takes the leap to ask for an order. The phrasing in your script can help the team navigate even the most difficult prospects from interest to agreement to sale to payment.
7. Referral request: Whether or not a team member has earned someone’s business, they should still request that the prospect refers their friends and family to them. Make sure to list strategies for navigating this step gracefully, and your team can turn every lead into additional leads.

The best way to build a script as both a training document and an ongoing reference guide is to identify, record, and transcribe successful sales. Consider working with sales leadership and top performers to compile high-converting conversation templates for different types of leads. Additionally, hold regular meetings to practice sale cadences and “rehearse” the script. That way, you can ensure everyone on your sales team is following the same game plan.

Fill out your playbook

Besides an effective script, a comprehensive sales playbook should have these additional key components.

Lead sources

Assess where your leads come from. Whether you get prospects from cold calls, hits on your website, or direct referrals from professional contacts, documenting these different sources has a number of benefits. First, you can identify just how many ways leads approach your business. Second, you can write different variations of the sales script for each lead type. And last, you can set standards for what your conversion rates for leads should be—and track your success.

The ideal client

Use your sales playbook to help establish which clientele you want to target. Start by determining who you currently market your products or services to, what segments of the general public would be most interested in your organization, and which groups are most likely to reach out to you first. Then draw up your ideal client’s demographic data and personality traits. Do your lead sources match this ideal client?

Reference materials

When a prospect asks a question like “Where is your product made?” your sales staff needs to have an answer ready. Devote a tab in your sales playbook to information on your products and services, including product dimensions, materials, and consumer review data. Service-based industries can also use this section to track data like success rates. For example, “On average, we save our clients 20 percent on their insurance premiums.”

Systems

Your team needs a guide to the various systems they utilize daily, including your CRM, dialer, productivity apps, and social media platforms. Detail best practices alongside some dos and don’ts so your team stays compliant. These sections can even include training documents in case a certain process slips their minds, helping them find answers fast.

Marketing materials

It’s essential to vary your marketing materials, such as emails, text messages, print materials, and webinars, depending on the lead type and whether the lead is hot, cold, or warm. Similarly, your team should vary their communications for inbound leads and outbound responses, and content should vary for automated and personalized content. Your sales playbook should offer a rubric for segmenting these materials by their intended use.

KPIs

Use your playbook to establish metrics for sales performance, quotas, and short- and long-term goals. You should also list different target numbers for calls, conversions, webinar bookings, and other performance standards, refreshing them with ongoing data so your team and leadership can track individual statistics. For extra motivation, place competitive elements on these pages like leaderboards and shout-outs to top performers.

Edit your playbook

It’s essential to think of your organization’s sales playbook as a living document. Rather than in a binder with laminated pages, it should exist in your company’s CRM. That way, your team can access it when necessary and easily click through tabs to get pertinent information or a technique refresher. Digitizing your playbook can also help you measure and update results often so you can track progress toward goals such as quarterly sales quotas where your whole team can see them.

Additionally, you need to be able to update your playbook in the event of changes like price increases. Having your sales team give a certain price tag to customers and then switch it up when payment is due is a huge betrayal of trust—and it can kill a potentially lucrative deal. Be sure to update your CRM with any new notable stats, such as the results of a recent consumer poll, the number of five-star reviews on platforms like Google Maps, or a new awards designation.

Customize your playbook

You can find several sales playbook templates online, but resist the urge to take the easy way out. Adapting someone else’s strategy isn’t going to maximize results for your business. Instead, you need to build your own playbook from the ground up. Your unique value proposition, audience, community, branding, and lead sources are part of what makes your company unique. Assess this info, and then start filling the pages of your playbook to build a solid framework for success—and see measurable increases in sales.

TAKE ACTION:
Design a comprehensive playbook to empower your sales team and promote higher closing rates.